The conlang bug

[ShadowedSin]

I've finished the basic Phonology of a Hellenic language I've started. So far I'm mucking through Ancient Greek Grammar to get the basics. Then I'm going to apply the sound changes

[Nìkllas]

Yeah the one that I'm making currently has the noun take the temporal designation instead of the verb.

Yeah, I remember I did such a language too. In fact it had the pronoun take the tense designation, but it had an irregular first person pronoun depending on the tense. A nice language, partly inspired in Aquitanian/Basque phonology.

[Reyi Pxaypxiwll]

Looking for a little bit of advice.

For the past six or seven years, I've been tinkering with 4 or 5 constructed languages specifically for a pet project of mine, and the oldest of these languages has been at once my pride and joy and my bane.  This language is currently in its third dictionary and grammar revision (now that I've learned a little more of proper linguistics due to my exposure to Na'vi) and has three dialects (mostly grammatical differences, but that's another subject for another post and time.)  

Everything's going pretty swimmingly, this being my most developed of my project conlangs... but it has one little historical hitch: a really weird consonant.  You see, deep into the second dictionary revision a couple years back, I had decided that the language should have a guttural, growling, chest thumping, "animal-istic" sound to it, specifically where I had the 'rr' in words.  This growl was originally glottal/pharyngeal, but I considered scrapping it because it would cause problems if the word this sound was going to be used in was going to be shouted into the wind or spoken loudly in general.  Of course, the supposed native speakers of this conlang wouldn't have an issue with this as growling and roaring comes naturally to them, but of the goals of this language was to make it possible to be learned an audience.  So, in an effort to still make the language somewhat plausibly speakable and still keep 'rr', I layered a trill on top of this growl-sound.  As you can already guess, growling and trilling simultaneously wasn't a smart idea, and it made this weird consonant even harder to pronounce!

Which leads me to why I'm here.  What do I do now?  I still want to keep the "animal-istic" sound and still clearly differentiate 'rr' from the single 'r' used in round, roar, or urn... AND not resort to a simple trill.  Any suggestions or possible consonant sounds that I might have missed (barring the obvious english ones)?

[wm.annis]

I still want to keep the "animal-istic" sound and still clearly differentiate 'rr' from the single 'r' used in round, roar, or urn... AND not resort to a simple trill. 

Have you considered the uvular trill?  It flows neatly enough in normal speaking (Germans manage it every day), but you can really chew on it for effect if you feel so moved.

[Nìkllas]

Well, I would suggest the Chinese r for example, or the rr pronounced as some dialects of Spanish in South America that's almost a soft "sh".

Check out wikipedia about the rhotics for a list so you can check each sound.

Also I know you don't want a trill, but may I suggest a bilabial trill? I think you might be interested, this one or the uvular might work, as they are very guttural.

Also, wm.annis, I commented on your blog, hope you give it a look And thank you for checking Kareyku! I hope you like what's coming!

[Reyi Pxaypxiwll]

Oh wow.  Thank you so much! ^.^ <3

The uvular trill is currently the top pick, though I will admit that it is going to take some practice to master (kind of hard when fighting a cold, and I sound like I'm hacking up a hairball... but I've done worse, XD) and I'm looking through some of the other rhotic consonants just in case.  If the uvular trill does start to become a mouthful, are there any tips to make this sound a little easier to chew on?  And are ways I can "fudge" it and still call it uvular/make it distinct from its un-trilled cousin?

Pokey the Thornbush: *rattlesnorf!*

Oh... and Pokey says "hi."

[kewnya txamew'itan]

You could use a syllabic/non-syllabic distinction on a vocied uvular fricative if you don't want the trill. Alternatively, Danish normally uses a pharyngeal approximant for its rhotic but in very conservative speech uses a voiced uvular fricative, you could do something similar and use them both, in traditional phonology both would have been described as "gutteral" so you can sort-of fudge it as being similar to a uvular sound.